A couple of interesting Mittwoch tidbits from the folks at Reason.com this morning.  First up:  U.S. Customs Seize Kentucky-Bound Hemp Seeds.  Not marijuana – hemp.  Excerpt:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have seized a batch of hemp seeds heading from Italy to Kentucky’s Agriculture Department. As of earlier this year, cultivating hemp—a type of cannabis plant related to marijuana in form but not function—is no longer illegal in the United States, ending a hysterical, decades-long ban on growing this totally non-psychoactive plant. But apparently no one bothered to tell customs?

Of course nobody bothered to tell Customs – or perhaps Customs knew and just didn’t care.

What the hell was the problem with hemp, anyway?  Marijuana at least is an intoxicant – although it’s unclear, at least to yr. obdt., why alcohol is legal and marijuana isn’t.  But let’s set that aside for now, and focus on hemp.

My grandfather grew hemp during the First and Second World Wars, and somehow nobody was driven into a cannabis-fueled frenzy.  Hemp has a wide variety of industrial uses, from rope to cloth to paper to biofuels.  But because of it’s relation to marijuana – or more accurately marijuana being a type of hemp – the Imperial Federal government has decided to disallow it’s growth in the U.S.?

Someone explain why that makes any sense.

The second tidbit from Reason is more lighthearted:  Are Video Games Art?   Being a casual gamer myself, and having played games like Skyrim and it’s MMO successor The Elder Scrolls Online, I’d say yes, sure – there is an enormous amount of graphic and literary creativity that goes into these works.  It’s one bright spot in American productivity right now – video games are making their creators a lot of money, and they’ve earned all of it.